Aleksandr Sergeevich Kuznetsov

Aleksandr Sergeevich Kuznetsov (Ru: Кузнецов Александр Сергеевич), nom de guerre Ratibor, is a Russian soldier who co-founded the Wagner Group alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin. His first role in the mercenary company was as commander of the 1st Attack and Reconnaissance Company in 2014, and fought in Syria, Libya, Sudan, and Ukraine. Following the death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2023, Kuznetsov joined the Chechen Akhmat forces in Ukraine with other ex-Wagner mercenaries.

Biography Kuznetsov was born on October 8, 1977, in Nikolskoye, USSR in what is now Russia. He graduated from the Saint Petersburg Higher Military Command College, and soon joined Senezh, the Russian special operations forces. In 2004, Kuznetov posted a video claiming he was in the group of Russian soldiers that killed Chechen fighter Khamzat Gelayev. He helped found the Wagner Group in 2014 alongside Yevgeny Prigozhin, Anton Yelizarov, Andrei Troshev, and Dmitry Utkin with the blessing of the Russian government. He took the call sign "Ratibor", and his first deployment was in Ukraine during the War in Donbas in 2014 with Rusich. In 2019, Kuznetsov served with Wagner in Libya alongside the Libyan National Army during their offensives on Tripoli. He was flown to Saint Petersburg for treatment.

In February 2022, Kuznetsov fought in the Russian invasion of Ukraine where he was injured on January 11, 2023, during the Battle of Soledar. In December 2022, Kuznetsov had been shown in a video by Russian propagandist Vladimir Solovyov.